The Educated Eye

“The HVLC Innovation System” builds a foundation of value by establishing processes and procedures that extract High Value-Low Cost ideas from employees while keeping an eye open for "Big Ideas." The employees develop an "Educated Eye" when they are able to use their newly acquired experience and awareness of basic business principles to "see" the business with a new vision.

Real examples using the Educated Eye

There is a part of this process that almost feels magical. It occurs when you work with line workers or first level managers and they get it. I mean, they really understand what the HVLC Innovation Process and the "Culture of Innovation" are all about. So when you see, as a trainer, employees demonstrating their "educated eye" with questions and actions that demonstrate their understanding, that is a great moment.

The following examples represent some really good examples of what we mean when we talk about the Educated Eye.

Example 1 - An employee came to us and asked help in help in keeping the CEO out of his way so that he could develop a special robotic controlled version of the traditional chemical process of the company. He needed someone to keep the meddling CEO and founder from interfering with his new design. (See Killer Ap) He understood what he had to do. He wanted to put this idea in play. It wasn't until we came on the scene and he saw that we meant business with action that he ventured forward. He had the guts to ask for help and we gave it to him. In this case, his Educated Eye was sort of sneaky. He knew what he wanted to do and he figured out how to get his idea in play with minimal risk to himself. We lead the way. Smart guy. The company was sold for 12x EBITDA only 10 months later.

Example 2 - In another Quantum Leap company, Example 2 in the Killer Ap section. The employees of one department made a proposal to management during one of our training sessions to approve the resources to re-organize the inventory of one of the key company products. One day, late afternoon a panic order came in. A client was in desperate need of this company's product immediately. The new organization of the department allowed the worker on night shift to say that he could do it and have it to FedEx that evening (before it would have taken at least a week). The salesman and the department manager used their "Educated Eyes" to see an opportunity. The company could now serve a market in which customers needed “May Day” service. If a client was out of service in any of the various parts of the country, the May Day service would be able to produce the product and get it to FedEx before the 8:00 pm drop dead time. The company could charge a premium to get the product to the customer because he was out of business and needed the product (supply/demand). This led to a new business service that generated very profitable business.

Example 3 - Another Quantum Leap company (a machine shop) completed the HVLC Innovation Initiative and had improved its operating processes. The Educated Eye came from the President, the Salesman and the CNC Machine Programmer. Their set-ups were the same for pilot runs and full production runs. In a machine shop, the goal is to have zero set-up or as close to that as possible. So with that, they could bid each job and send a sample part to the customer. The whole process of getting part designs from the customer in computerized format which were then converted automatically into computer instructions to the mills and lathes and parts were manufactured with minimal human intervention. Later when they found that they could deliver a sample product with each quote to their largest customer, they had achieved an ideal situation. They ended up getting all of the customer’s engineering prototype business (which had high margins) because they made it easy and efficient for the customer to give them the business. And then they could pick the production runs that they wanted. This process led to them being a very successful Quantum Leap Company that was sold 4 years later for a premium multiple of EBITDA.